5.5 billion users of mobile and wearable biometrics by 2019: Goode Intelligence

In its latest analyst report, Goode Intelligence has forecasted that by 2019 there will be 5.5 billion users of mobile and wearable biometric technology around the globe.

According to Mobile and Wearable Biometric Authentication: Market Analysis and Forecasts 2014-2019, this projected growth will initially be driven by the integration of fingerprint sensors in high-end smartphones and tablets, then rapidly followed by other innovative biometric technologies deployed as part of either FIDO Aware solutions, proprietary-device OEM led initiatives such as Touch ID, and integration into multi-factor authentication platforms.

The forecasted spike in popularity is brought on by the fact that wearable technology offers great potential to support biometric technology for authentication purposes.

Goode Intelligence goes on to further predict that Apple will integrate biometrics into its iWatch smart watch later this year, either in the form of its Touch ID fingerprint solution or another biometric modality such as heartbeat recognition.

The report also highlights key drivers behind the adoption of mobile and wearable biometric authentication, which include convenient authentication, replacing password and PINs, driving mobile payments, securing enterprise mobility, the authenticator for the Internet of things.

“We believe that smartphones and tablets will be the first wave of consumer devices to be biometrically-enabled and this will quickly be followed by wearable technology” said Alan Goode, author of the report and founder of Goode Intelligence. “We are very much at the beginning of another transformational aspect of authentication – the use of wearable technology for authentication purposes, in particular leveraging the next wave of biometric technology to create seamless, continuous, authentication. What will be truly transformational about the use of biometrics on wearable devices, is the birth of the universal authenticator – a device that intuitively knows who we are, where we are, what we want to do and can open doors – both physical and virtual.”

In February, Goode Intelligence released a series of reports which included a projection of 619 million people using biometrics on mobile devices by the end of 2015.

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consumer  |  Goode Inteligence  |  research  |  wearable